


Things Could be Worse...  No, Really.

by thatsrightdollface



Category: New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Alternate Universe, Character Study, Fluff, Love Across The Universe: Dangan Salmon Team, M/M, SO, Scene Interpretation, Shuichi gets Kokichi's good ending, and there are some hopes and headcanons for their post-game lives too, but it's my take on a canon-ish one? :P, dating game, maybe this is also an, referring to canon stuff within the game's own dating AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-28
Updated: 2017-11-28
Packaged: 2019-02-08 02:12:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12854517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatsrightdollface/pseuds/thatsrightdollface
Summary: If he’d been given a choice, Kokichi Oma didn’t think he’d have signed himself up for some manic robot bear’s prison-based dating game - but hey, sometimes things like that just happened!





	Things Could be Worse...  No, Really.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi~ I hope I did okay with this – sorry for anything I got wrong. I was thinking about these scenes a lot, and thought it would be fun to try a take on them from Kokichi’s perspective/paint a picture of cozy stuff happening post-game. :P So... If you read this, I hope you have fun, too.  
> Have a great day!!!
> 
> *EDIT: I realized a mistake I made, and have edited a little bit to fix it. Sorry!!

If he’d been given a choice, Kokichi Oma didn’t think he’d have signed himself up for some manic robot bear’s prison-based dating game - but hey, sometimes things like that just happened!  He guessed.  Apparently?   The way it sounded, that nasty bear ringleader, Monokuma, had been getting them all nice and ready for a much, much worse sort of game.  A  _Killing_  Game.  Kokichi knew he was lucky; this dating nonsense was like getting a ridiculously good hand in the very first round. 

The claustrophobia and high stakes probably just made the whole thing even more romantic, too.  Like two suckers confessing their love while dangling over a supervillain’s shark pit, looking at all the gnawed-up body parts already bobbing around beneath them and thinking –  _“Hey, why the fuck not?”_   The lumbering death machines, rigged floorboard traps and gibbering robot bears running the show were really an A+ way to set the mood for dating.  It was completely fine! 

 (No, it wasn’t. That was a lie.)

Kokichi wasn’t feeling “fine” at all, even if this had to be better than a “Killing Game.”  He was standing on the brittle, scratchy grass in what he knew was supposed to look like an innocent high school courtyard, trying to work up the nerve to make his feet  _move_.  He could have sworn he’d seen the same clouds circle over him a few times, already, and the sunlight felt so strange.  Those dead-eyed teddy bear things had assigned him a bunch of copies of his clothes and set him up to rattle around that dank and overgrown place, so far from what he was supposed to be.  The Ultimate Supreme Leader, wearing something that looked awfully like a torn-up, modified straitjacket and some actual chains. 

Kokichi saw the way people looked at him, so far – he figured he could guess what they expected.  What, had someone wanted to chain him to a wall?  Such an encouraging intro, out of context!  And now he was supposed to be finding a date.  

This was going to be so, so fun.

(Yeah, right.)

So, Kokichi knew he had to make someone fall in love with him before he could get hell out of that prison school and back to the gang that was his family.  A family in clown masks and cackling pranks, all that good stuff.  A family that needed him.  But why couldn’t he get himself going? 

Kokichi was a liar, wasn’t he?  He could talk to whoever the hell he wanted, maybe spin them up some pretty stories and cutesy chirped compliments.  But the chain dangling from his jacket was heavy, and warm against his skin in the heat.  Could feel it through his jacket, even.  He kept fiddling with the checkered scarf they’d told him was his own, thinking about chessboards and strategies, thinking about all the many, many games he’d rather be playing than one all about fake love.

Because it  _would_  be fake love, wouldn’t it?  That was okay, because Kokichi wasn’t expecting to find anything real in a polished-up high school prison maze, anyway.  And he wouldn’t have wanted real love, not then.  Not with anyone around there, obviously.

(That may have been a lie, or maybe not.  Kokichi probably would’ve just laughed, if someone spying magically on his thoughts had happened to ask him.) 

At any rate – lies or no lies – Kokichi almost couldn’t believe it when Shuichi Saihara came strolling up to him, shuffling through the grass, glancing up at what was supposed to be a sunny day.  There was something so solid, so slick about Shuichi.  His eyes were like a thoughtful, heavy sky, weighed down with grey clouds and probably the kind of creeping, atmospheric mist you’d find in a detective novel.  Someplace like Gotham, maybe, with phantom thieves like Catwoman ducking across the rooftops and someone with a steady gaze just like Shuichi’s chasing them from night to criminal, death-defying night.  Shuichi’s clothes were neat, too, and his smiles so unexpected and shy.  _Honest_ , in a way Kokichi had never really tried to keep his own face. 

 What the fuck was Shuichi doing?  If Kokichi was going to fall in love with anyone – really fall for them – maybe Shuichi had guessed it would be him.  What was Kokichi, then, some kind of easy target?  Or maybe Shuichi was just a shitty judge of character.  Maybe he didn’t think he could get burned making his way up to a known liar, a tyrant who claimed to run some kind of super-evil organization. 

Was he just not scared of Kokichi at all?  Didn’t he wonder what the fuck he’d done, or, hell, what an “Ultimate Supreme Leader” would be capable of?  Kokichi had caught himself wondering, sometimes, and  _he_  was already wearing his skin, stretching out inside his mind and turning over all the thoughts there like he was looking for clues.  If anyone was going to know Kokichi Oma, it would have to be his own self.

Or maybe the Ultimate Detective thought it should be  _him_ , instead.    

“Hey,” Shuichi said, somehow not looking as nervous as Kokichi would have expected anyone to, making the first move in a ridiculous high school dating game you didn’t sign up for and couldn’t actually leave.  “It’s ‘Kokichi Oma,’ right?” 

Welp, better greet him with a taunting cocktail of sarcasm and surprise, and then a couple threats.  Better show Shuichi what he was dealing with –  _didn’t think you’d want to talk to such a nefarious liar, right? –_ and then…  If the Ultimate Detective stuck around…  Hm. 

And then challenge him to some kind of better game, Kokichi supposed.  If there was a more reliable way to get to know someone, he didn’t honestly know it.  Maybe they’d end up getting tea, not that Kokichi thought that sounded fun.  Kind of tedious, you know?

(Ha, ha.)

…

For the past couple days, Shuichi had come striding across the courtyard to hang out with Kokichi, over and over again.  His hair had been glossy and smooth, brushed nicely like he’d been going somewhere fun instead of just wandering around their dating game prison.  He’d shrugged off the idea of playing Russian roulette with bullets in all the chambers as if it  _wasn’t_  that disturbing a suggestion, and he’d looked completely baffled when Kokichi congratulated him on winning a Yu-Gi-Oh match.  That stricken, confused look on Shuichi’s face had been kind of endearing, and Kokichi sort of hoped he knew he’d never been in actual danger.

“I’m gonna kill you pretty soon!” Kokichi had laughed – “Just one more get-together, and then you’re dead meat, Shuichi!  Better make it fun.”

Part of him had wanted to see Shuichi get all pale, maybe, uncertainty prickling up his back like dripping, horror-movie cold – because that would confirm what he was scared of, maybe, or maybe just because that kind of game was entertaining even when it hurt.  And part of him, potentially the “real” part Kokichi sometimes lost track of, really, really hadn’t wanted anything like that at all.  Kokichi had snuck in gentle thoughts, sometimes, calming things that would show Shuichi a little more of what else he could be.  Willing him to stick around; explaining how people in his organization would solve all their confrontations and shit with games.  He wanted to play, and he wanted to keep Shuichi held back at arm’s length until he was sure about him, and he wanted to sidle in closer and see what it felt like to have Shuichi droop against him as he fell asleep.

Defenseless, and trusting, and together.  Despite everything.

At first it felt like an embarrassing daydream, or like the stupid dating game was  _winning_  somehow, but after a while Kokichi stopped denying it to himself.     

When Shuichi had brought him gifts, Kokichi had congratulated him on his taste – he’d promised gifts in return, and then never actually brought them.  Shuichi came by to see him anyway.

When Shuichi had been bandaging him up after playing the knife game – after Kokichi’d let his hand slip right under his own knife, mind you – he’d looked so raw and real and worried.  Kokichi hadn’t been able to turn off his laughter; it was like a tap left running until the sink overflowed.  He knew his eyes were getting soft and melty, useless and sticky as popsicles left in the sun, but he hadn’t been able to help himself.  Shuichi wouldn’t have faked that kind of concern.  He wasn’t the sort of person who faked much at all, Kokichi was sure, and the tender way Shuichi swabbed up his blood and sterilized his wound felt almost like a kiss.

It wasn’t until a while later –  _now_ , actually, as Shuichi came by to take him on an actual date – that Kokichi wondered if maybe he’d been fucking with the poor guy’s head too often.  Maybe he had been a little much? 

“I stole your heart, so now I’m satisfied!  I don’t need to steal your life anymore!” he’d declared, arms flung wide, one of his wildest “Ultimate Supreme Leader” smiles on.  At the time that had felt like enough to change the game they were playing…  Showing Shuichi some of the cards he’d been holding up close to his heart…  Proving he wasn’t actually going to be a threat.  But maybe Shuichi didn’t see it that way?  Maybe Kokichi had made himself into the kind of person Shuichi wouldn’t be able to believe whatever the fuck he said. 

Maybe something bigger would have to change, if they were going to know each other.  If Shuichi was actually going to like him back – or get his heart stolen, whichever one.  He’d come striding up, again, and asked to go see a movie or something; he’d brushed his arm against Kokichi’s in the hallways, opening doors for him and telling a laughing story about how he’d almost stepped into one of the prison school’s weird booby traps that morning when trying to snag some extra shampoo.  Kokichi laughed along; he postured a little, and hoped Shuichi would pick the kind of goofy comedy film that would let him turn off his brain for a couple hours.   

But by the time they got to the movie room, Kokichi sort of froze.  His hand was still wrapped up in Shuichi’s bandages – he probably should have changed them out, to be honest – and it ached whenever he so much as twitched his fingers.  Shuichi could have been talking to him for all he knew, just then, but it was so hard to look at him.  Kokichi knew he must have felt that nervous, twisting sickness all through his insides before, but he couldn’t remember it.  He was dizzy and cold, swallowed up in his own head. 

How the fuck was he gonna deal with a feeling like that, when he was supposed to be entertaining a stupidly cute boy on what might have been the first date of his life?  Albeit a date within the confines of a weird robot bear-run dating game, but  _still_.  All the blood had drained from his face, and if he threw up in front of Shuichi he was never going to forgive himself.

(Or maybe he’d just play it off as some kind of joke.  But that was part of the problem, wasn’t it?  Shuichi was never going to know what was real from him, and after a while wouldn’t he just stop trying to figure it out?)

Maybe Shuichi was never really gonna get close to someone like him, not unless he gave up his tricks, his lies, altogether…  Or else taught Shuichi to love that side of him, somehow?  Love lying, just as a concept. 

Maybe they were never going to understand one another, no matter what.  He could change, or Shuichi could change, or he could stay frozen there like he was actually, secretly, a robot, too and his brain had just shut down. 

That last option really sucked, but for a moment Kokichi wasn’t sure he could do anything else.  And then, as if he’d read his mind somehow – creepy, but not creepy enough to scare him off, of course – Shuichi started talking.  He picked up Kokichi’s hand and inspected the dirty bandages, eyebrows scrunched up just a little.  Worried, but smiling.   

“I’ll never tell you that I love your lying…  But perhaps I can learn to tolerate it,” Shuichi offered.  He’d ducked his head, just a little; he was smiling up shyly like those words truly meant something.

What the fuck, right?  But then, he  _was_  the Ultimate Detective.  Who knew what kind of little signs Kokichi had been giving off.  Those Gotham-ish streets, again.  The shivery, swooning feel of being  _seen_.

It really wasn’t fair, what Shuichi was doing to him.  He must have cheated at their little game, somehow, and should be properly ashamed of himself. 

(No.  Whatever weird cheat codes he’d used, Kokichi was glad he’d managed them.)    

Maybe Kokichi didn’t methodically decide to mess with Shuichi, next, scolding him for giving in without being persuaded to love lies or – somehow – any of his fears actually being spoken aloud – “… I didn’t realize how small your determination was, Shuichi.”  Or maybe he did?  Whatever the case, Shuichi could see right through him.  Kokichi might have gotten a glimpse of the future, then –  a game they’d play together, where Shuichi could call him out, snickering.  Kokichi wouldn’t mind being discovered, he didn’t think.  In fact, maybe he could come to count on it, where it mattered. 

It was almost as if he’d been born into the world just to meet this guy, in that moment.  Someone who would truly understand him.  And along with that, someone who _wanted_ to truly understand him, which was no small thing, either.

They didn’t actually watch a movie that day, but it was alright.  Kokichi knew they’d get another chance at it.

…

Their apartment was small but warm, a few years later.  Out in the – ahem – “real world.”  At first the fact that they’d met on some kind of fucked up murder-game-show-turned-dating-thing had meant a lot of interviews where Kokichi spouted morbid, giggling nonsense and shot everyone bitter looks.  Shuichi had covered paparazzi cameras up with his slim, gloved hands and gotten so used to saying “No Comment” Kokichi sometimes joked he’d start muttering it in his sleep.  They’d taken part in the fifty-third season of something called “Danganronpa,” apparently, and had to sit back to watch the rest of their friends flirting awkwardly on TV until the next cast got chosen and had their identities wiped.

Kokichi’s gang hadn’t existed, it turned out.  His family just…   _Hadn’t existed_.  He saw interviews with whatever self had worn his body before him and thought, “Aw man, this guy kind of sucks, doesn’t he?”  He’d been told his old name and scoffed at it, holding on so tightly to Shuichi’s sleeve that his knuckles turned white.

“Yeah, that guy’s dead,” he’d announced, keeping his voice as flippant as he could.  (Which was pretty damn flippant given the circumstances, if Kokichi did say so himself.)  “You’ve got  _me_  now, though!  I’m gonna go ahead and call it a fair trade.”      

The “real world” was somehow even more messed up than the dating/killing game prison high school, in its way.  Probably because it was  _responsible_  for the dating/killing game prison high school…  Whatever.  Kokichi was going to flip that world off for the rest of his life, he suspected, and he was going to do it laughing like a maniac and with Shuichi getting most – if not all – of his jokes.  That was a different story, though.  That was  _Kokichi Oma and Shuichi Saihara vs. Team Danganronpa_ , and it had started up after season fifty-four kicked off with a lot of good, old-fashioned killing.

Not that Kokichi didn’t love a little murder.  So fun, watching a bunch of innocent, terrified people shambling around that familiar plastic-y high school prison, plotting to tear each other to pieces!

(Gross, actually.  Ew.  Probably?)

Kokichi had made sure to pirate whatever episodes they watched for plotting purposes, so Team Danganronpa didn’t get even a single coin out of their views. 

So, at first the fact that Kokichi had met his boyfriend on a weird, nonconsensual dating show had meant a lot of awkward magazine articles, sure, but by the time Kokichi was shaking out his umbrella at the door that night he wasn’t thinking about any of that shit at all.

(Okay, maybe a little bit.)

But what lasted – what mattered – wasn’t the articles people wrote about how Kokichi had bared his soul at the end there, offering Shuichi the option to stick with him after they “graduated,” and really, truly get to know him.  What mattered was that he had offered, and Shuichi had said yes.  Screw all those online message boards.  Shuichi’s eyes had been steady and warm, back then, and he had held Kokichi’s hand so tightly as they stepped back into the world.  It might have been Kokichi’s imagination, but he could have sworn Shuichi rubbed his fingers with the side of his thumb, too.  

He had held out his hand after so long wondering how Shuichi kept offering his own.  Circling one another, always trying to get on the same page.  Whether Kokichi’s body was seventy-percent made up of lies or not, Shuichi had wanted to stay close to him. He’d been hoping, but until that solid, undeniable moment…  Who could have really said? 

“I’m home,” Kokichi called, all sing-song.  Back in the present, with his feet aching and a heavy backpack slung over his shoulder and printed with a checkerboard pattern.  Everyone at his college knew who he was, so why not own it?  They’d seen his chessboard, harlequin scarf.  They’d known who he was before he did. “Work was amazing – almost too much of a constant thrill ride! – and my boss didn’t chew me out at all – ”

“Welcome back,” Shuichi laughed.  “And just so you know, all that gushing is really ominous.  What did you even  _do_ , Kokichi?”

“Not much.  My homework, mostly, on my lap under the desk.  The place was dead, tonight.”

“Hah.  Well, dinner’s ready when you are.”

Their apartment was small but warm, and filled with Shuichi’s criminology textbooks.  There were movie posters and scribbly calendars on the walls; there was a bookshelf full of card decks and game boxes.  There was a framed picture of the pair of them cosplaying Sherlock Holmes and his nemesis Moriarty, posing dramatically enough to confuse a bunch of people outside the Baker Street museum in London.   Maybe it was weird that Kokichi had framed a promotional picture of his make-believe gang, D.I.C.E., too, but it wasn’t their fault they weren’t real.  His memories of them, however vague (or scripted by absolute assholes,) would always matter. 

Sometimes they joked about that time Shuichi had asked if Kokichi’d go on a date with him and then suggested they poke through everyone’s garbage…  And sometimes they met up with the friends that had stood around that fake high school courtyard with them, wondering who was going to talk to who first.  But mostly they just  _were_.  They reacted to the world, and they grew into something new together.

Maybe life wasn’t what Kokichi’d been imagining back when he’d, you know, thought his personality  _hadn’t_  been made up for a dating show, but parts of it were better than what he’d known how to hope for. 


End file.
